I am curious as to why some member(s) insist on adding every band on bandcamp that comes along to this thread? Sure in an ideal world we would all love to see a band make it but surely bandcamp is merely a huge unending bucket of many one man bands/part-timers using a prog tag to maximise their coverage? Yet how many of these are really prog?

Seems an awful lot of effort....and I am not sure the exercise merits attention. Would be interested to see what others think about this.

<font color=Brown>Music - The Sound Librarian

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I strongly believe we should not be expending too much energy on these bands. If they have a web-presence outside Bandcamp and the ubiquitous social network channels then (and only then) should we look at them, but that should be at the discretion of the respective Sub-genre Teams, not as a golden rule that they must follow.

The Bandcamp thread under General Music Discussions is not a Suggestion New Bands thread - feel free to ignore it at your leisure.

I am curious as to why some member(s) insist on adding every band on bandcamp that comes along to this thread? Sure in an ideal world we would all love to see a band make it but surely bandcamp is merely a huge unending bucket of many one man bands/part-timers using a prog tag to maximise their coverage? Yet how many of these are really prog?

Seems an awful lot of effort....and I am not sure the exercise merits attention. Would be interested to see what others think about this.

I obviously can't speak for others, but an informed guess on my behalf would be, that these members feel they're doing good work for PA in helping it become the ultimate source on progressive rock. Personally, I think it's a great disservice to both PA as well as to the acts themselves. I don't think I've ever seen one of these bands mentioned in a thread - let alone read a review of one their records on the front-page(hang on, I seem to remember Alan(colourofmoney) doing one a little while back. Wow 1 review then....).

Must be frustrating as a band, artist, bedroom music magician - to get included on a well respected site, get one's hopes up and all that - for then to be completely forgotten the second later.

The other side is that the teams on here end up getting clocked by artists that they use up a lot of their time on - searching for info in regards to bios, albums and whatnot. And then at the other end - all of that work becomes close to redundant, on account of lacking interest from the community. Plus some of the acts that actually do have a following, respected careers and chances of getting mentioned in both reviews and threads, end up in cue - awaiting a decision on some bandcamp act that exactly two people have heard of...

“The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”

It depends on the type of Bandcamp band really. If it is an artist whose sole presence is on Bandcamp, and the release is digital on that site solely, then value is limited. But there aren't too many of those cases actually.

I do find that many bands on Bandcamp for some reason or other fail to mention that their music is also available on CD and/or vinyl for instance, and just as many fail to mention an existence elsewhere on the net as well. So while they may appear as a Bandcamp only band, in reality they aren't. Which, basically, boils down to poor marketing skills. Which is the reason for the existence of stuff like record labels in the first place I guess.

Bandcamp has also become much more than it was just a couple of years ago, as this link documents quite nicely. Of course, it might be more fruitful to explore other sources of potential artist additions prior to bandcamp - CDBaby and emusic to name but two of many more high profile sources or potential artist additions that to my knowledge hasn't been given a thorough run. When checking both those sites from time to time I come across tons of artists that haven't yet been given a check.

I question the value of most of CDBaby's output to be absolutely frank - anyone can have a CD sold via CDBaby, many of them are low-volume productions-runs on CDR (most of which remain unsold). Slightly more valid than Bandcamp because the artists involved actually had to do something physical to get their music out there.

I just read Spotify lost 78 million dollars last year, one wonders how well the new paradigm is going.

Meanwhile I just saw a news show about how some smaller vinyl companies cannot keep up with their demand, even running shifts round the clock. I realize those little companies are small potatoes, but heh, it's nice to hear all the same.

"1. Only bands with no official releases (see below), but with the intention of publishing an official release at some point shall be spotted. Once an official release is available the band shall go to the Suggest New Bands forum or to the Genre Teams evaluation depending on their quality/progginess, etc. At the time of move, an indication of which genre team should consider the band will be added to the thread title.

For the purpose of clarity, an official release is defined here as:

1.1 A single long track or several shorter tracks combined under one title, with at least the length of an EP (10-25 minutes);

1.2 Recorded and mixed in a professional manner, such that it meets commercial sound quality as found on average CDs released by commercial record companies;

1.3 That is available for sale on demand, either in physical (glass pressed CD (not burned CD-R) or vinyl, not tape) form or downloadable (MP3, Ogg, iTunes...) from the band themselves or through a commercial distribution company/record shop; and

1.4 Being sold as a commercial product rather than a promotional item."

So every band added here is meant to be introduced as professional(touring, selling, etc)-to-be prog band.

I'd rather vote for this place to be a pool of projects where there'd be only two rules:

1. One really enjoys what one adds.

2. It can obviously be called prog.

There's nothing to fear about forgotten hidden gems, because any mp3 can be kept safe nowadays, and the opportunities to find the right ears on the web have become unlimited. You'll hardly be or meet the misunderstood ONLY ONE on Earth to enjoy music that so many would celebrate centuries later, would you.

There are some great genuine bands on there that deserve to be here. One of my Top 10 albums I submitted to the collab list came from bandcamp. But as you said I'm pretty sure they have a small presence outside of that site. I agree that suggestions from there should be slowed down though. Not every band from there with a progressive tag should be posted here or suggested for addition. It just adds to the lists of bands that get no ratings or reviews besides the person who may have suggested them. I don't think that's a worthy exchange. Though, we are an "archive".

So every band added here is meant to be introduced as professional(touring, selling, etc)-to-be prog band.

I'd rather vote for this place to be a pool of projects where there'd be only two rules:

1. One really enjoys what one adds.

2. It can obviously be called prog.

There's nothing to fear about forgotten hidden gems, because any mp3 can be kept safe nowadays, and the opportunities to find the right ears on the web have become unlimited. You'll hardly be or meet the misunderstood ONLY ONE on Earth to enjoy music that so many would celebrate centuries later, would you.

Bandcamp is an adequate "pool of projects" as it is, it does not need us to validate or replicate that.

I strongly oppose "1. One really enjoys what one adds." - that is not why we are here - if we had to like and enjoy all the bands we added or voted for the database would be a lot smaller I assure you. I really disliked some of the bands I voted for in Crossover, I still voted infavour of their inclusion and added them. We get accused of adding our "favourites" enough as it is, if it became official policy this place would become a joke and most of us would leave.

[The internet is not a safe place to keep mp3s alive, far from it - I predict that most of the mp3s currently on the internet will not be there in 10 years time, let alone 100. Thousands of mp3s vanished when mp3.com changed its modus operandi ten years ago, millions disappeared when Megaupload was closed down by the Feds. While Bandcamp makes money for its owners it will exist, it can only make money by attracting people like Amanda Palmer who shift downloads by the thousand, the more high-selling artists it can attract the less it will need (or want) the small independant artists that sell 10-100 downloads. The internet is akin to a dynamic storage medium, the stored mp3s are only accessible if the links to them exist, links that are not refreshed get lost and access to the mp3s is lost with them.]

Bandcamp is an adequate "pool of projects" as it is, it does not need us to validate or replicate that.

No I mean exclusively prog projects.

Dean wrote:

I strongly oppose "1. One really enjoys what one adds." - that is not why we are here

Sorry I didn't mean "add" as "vote for adding a regular band", but only as a project in this very UB thread .

Of course this rule "1" can work only if PA has become big enough, for enthousiasts to add projects if the main caretakers miss them. Doesn't Wikipedia work like this?

Dean wrote:

- if we had to like and enjoy all the bands we added or voted for the database would be a lot smaller I assure you. I really disliked some of the bands I voted for in Crossover, I still voted infavour of their inclusion and added them. We get accused of adding our "favourites" enough as it is, if it became official policy this place would become a joke and most of us would leave.

Those efforts seem huge indeed !! But you're talking about the next stage, when bands have a signed status.

[The internet is not a safe place to keep mp3s alive, far from it - I predict that most of the mp3s currently on the internet will not be there in 10 years time, let alone 100. Thousands of mp3s vanished when mp3.com changed its modus operandi ten years ago, millions disappeared when Megaupload was closed down by the Feds. While Bandcamp makes money for its owners it will exist, it can only make money by attracting people like Amanda Palmer who shift downloads by the thousand, the more high-selling artists it can attract the less it will need (or want) the small independant artists that sell 10-100 downloads. The internet is akin to a dynamic storage medium, the stored mp3s are only accessible if the links to them exist, links that are not refreshed get lost and access to the mp3s is lost with them.]

Thanks, once again, for your time giving information. One shouldn't be too optimistic, but nonprofit organizations also work in the music field. In Switzerland for instance, mx3.ch is the place thousands swiss bands/musicians store their stuff on.

Bandcamp is an adequate "pool of projects" as it is, it does not need us to validate or replicate that.

No I mean exclusively prog projects.

Dean wrote:

I strongly oppose "1. One really enjoys what one adds." - that is not why we are here

Sorry I didn't mean "add" as "vote for adding a regular band", but only as a project in this very UB thread .

Of course this rule "1" can work only if PA has become big enough, for enthousiasts to add projects if the main caretakers miss them. Doesn't Wikipedia work like this?

We have no rules for adding "recomendations" into the General Music Section of the forum, nor do we need them. I was only referring to those bands added to the PA database, not the forum. We are not run like Wikipedia.

Well...I confess that I was recently about to add the Wanana Bani Garden band, one of my happiest prog discoveries ever (sic!), on Unsigned Bands.

But I haven't so far, because of the not so perfect renderings. As the band leader doesn't seem to focus on a song until it's perfect and prefers going on with new stuff, my hope for a beyond-utterly-perfect rendering is quite low.

While I don't come close to listening to all of the "bandcamp bands" recommended here, I have found a couple of dozen bands on bandcamp that I enjoy and have bought CDs from. I think bandcamp is a great place for both new and established bands to release their music. I would also hate for a band to not be added to PA just because bandcamp is their only/primary distribution method.

Well...I confess that I was recently about to add the Wanani Bane Band, one of my happiest prog discoveries ever (sic!), on Unsigned Bands.

But I haven't so far, because of the not so perfect renderings. As the band leader doesn't seem to focus on a song until it's perfect and prefers going on with new stuff, my hopes for a non-utterly-perfect rendering is quite low.

All Prog Lounges, including Prog Recommendations are for bands already listed in the main PA archive, so strictly speaking that thread should have been created in General Music Discussions or Unsigned Bands, unless you want us to evaluate them for addition, then Suggest new Bands would be the place.

I strongly believe we should not be expending too much energy on these bands. If they have a web-presence outside Bandcamp and the ubiquitous social network channels then (and only then) should we look at them, but that should be at the discretion of the respective Sub-genre Teams, not as a golden rule that they must follow.

The Bandcamp thread under General Music Discussions is not a Suggestion New Bands thread - feel free to ignore it at your leisure.

That's my fear.

How many of this bands really exist?

A group of 5 kids join in a garage, they have 5 songs and send them to bandcamp as an experiment.

We add them, and 2 months later they don't exist, they never released a real album...What's the point on adding them?

We added a couple bands from Band camp like Via Obscura, but only when they were verified on different sites.

Another one was really good and they had released a real physical album, so we went with them.

I know some bands appearing only upon Bandcamp which are tremendously skilled / professional and well deserved for inclusion into PA, and on the contrary, some under formal contract to labels (including independent ones) which are amateur-ish and no-thank-you in PA (as some Admins / Collabs know, Kazuhiro and I strongly were opposed to an inclusion case which had been done without notice a while before).

But hey, we PA have fantastic "Subgenre Evaluation Teams", that can make proper decisions, let me say.

If they have a web-presence outsideBandcamp and the ubiquitous social network channels then (and only then) should we look at them, but that should be at the discretion of the respective Sub-genre Teams, not as a golden rule that they must follow.

That was the case of Via Obscura, they existed outside Bandcamp.

2.- Searching for information about the artist in the web.

3.- Receiving a PM from Finnforest if I'm not wrong

4.- And contacting the band for some info

So I insist, IMHO searching the Bandcamp thread is a waste of time, you may find one good band after digging hours.

Iván

PS: I daily make a search with the word Symphonic, and I check everything that's there, before notifying the team. I never give them a name and expect them to research, I give them all the available info.

I like what I listen, but remember, the own band members say in their bio:

VIA OBSCURA was founded in 2004 in Münster as an experimental band project. With dedication to music in general, a background in rock bands with 70-s-influences, jazz, Gothic-Rock-/Doom-Bands, progressive metal, classical music and openness to other genres

Actually, I said "yes you did it after my suggestion", I didn't mentioned the bandcamp recommendation on Bandcamp thread. Also, the link I posted to proove it, that's the same link what you posted.

Yes, before I suggested Via Obscura for Symphonic, I regullary recommended Via Obscura debut album (btw, this is actually the project, not really band) on Bandcamp thread.

I said all of this just because you guys think that bandcamp is more or less an useless thing, that I did a bad thing for this site with a lot of "bandcamp bands" and "bedroom magicians" what I suggested, recommended and posted at "Unsigned Bands" forum, while I think that Bandcamp now is THE best service for the new bands and the listeners/buyers who can hear all of the new tendencies in Progressive Rock and, consenquently, I did do so many of nice and accepted suggestions who are based on searching Bandcamp - although not all of my successfuly accepted suggestions went here via Bandcamp.

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